Measuring a Moving Target? Populist Attitudes When Populists are In and Out of Power

In recent years research into populism has addressed the question of whether and how a latent dimension of populist attitudes can be measured, with various batteries of questions devised to operationalise it. This literature has contributed much to our understanding of the demand-side nature of the phenomenon. However, given the centrality of anti-elitism to the measurement of populist attitudes, it suffers from a potential flaw: the impact of populist incumbency. in most cases, populist attitudes are measured when populist parties are in opposition. Can we measure populist attitudes properly if populists are in power? To answer this question, my paper uses two sets of data collected in Poland: one from 2019, during the tenure of the populist radical right PiS government; the other to be collected in early 2025, one year into the tenure of the “pro-democratic coalition” that succeeded it. I employ a split sample approach in which a third of the sample answer the standard 9-item Castanho Silva battery of populism questions, a third answer a modified version of those questions which make specific reference to the incumbent elite, and a third answer a modified version of those questions which makes specific reference to all members of the political elite regardless of who is currently in power. The results of this analysis will make it possible to ascertain whether one of the most commonly used batteries of populism questions captures populist attitudes in a consistent manner regardless of who is in power, to what extent the nature of the incumbent affects anti-elite attitudes, and whether the problem of any ‘incumbency bias’ can be ameliorated by rephrasing the questions. These findings will contribute to our understanding of the scope and usefulness of survey questions about populist attitudes.